The Ann's on S. Zang in Dallas. Photo by Joi Louviere
You might think you already know the story of a health food store selling supplements, tinctures, and freshly made smoothies. But for the family that owns and operates Ann’s Health Food Center & Market, their business was founded on their grandmother’s desire to be a good neighbor.
Health and wellness is the hottest trend in the US right now, so a business catering to that makes sense. But the Munchrath family has 41 years in the game, thanks to their late grandmother Ann, and it’s always been more about helping the community than it was about making a dollar.
Original customers will tell you that Ann was generous. “ She was benevolent and would help anybody,” Micah said. “She would give everything away if she could.”
As the story was told to Micah Munchrath—as he was not yet born when the late Ann Munchrath began her health and wellness journey— Ann was caring for her sickly mother and learning about supplements and vitamins. After becoming a regular at an existing health food store in Oak Cliff, she began to work there to get use of the employee discount. When the then-owner, Steve Feedler, was looking to let the store go, Ann and her husband Donald agreed to take it. In 1984, it became Ann’s Health Food Market and Center.
Ann took what she learned from caring for her mother and offered that education to the community, often sitting in her neighbors houses with bottles of supplements, explaining what each one did. She wanted to heal people.
Knowing Ann’s power was her product knowledge and generosity, her husband focused on making sure the business was profitable. When he passed in 2000, Micah’s father Donald Jr. stepped in to make sure the doors stayed open, his three sons— Ryan, Micah, and Landon— joining later with part-time roles and then leadership positions.
Alzheimer’s took Ann away from the day-to-day of the business by the late 1990s. She died in 2011, her legacy reinforced as a saintly figure in the neighborhood by funeral attendees.
Her family honors her legacy by trying to tap into the needs of the community and being generous with their time, and sometimes with products. Grandson and owner of the Red Bird location, Landon Munchrath, has taken that torch.
“The one thing I try to carry on from my grandmother is compassion,” said Landon Munchrath. “Any time that I can, I will give away products.”
The Munchrath family in the late 1980s. Photo Courtesy of Ann’s Health Food
Ann’s in the health and wellness era
Today, there are four Ann’s locations in the Dallas metro: Two in Dallas, one in Arlington, and a 10,000 square-foot location in Waxahachie. Health in the US is only getting worse and healthcare is becoming increasingly unaffordable— stores like Ann’s are more popular than ever as individuals look for ways to treat everyday illness and chronic conditions outside western medicine.
The Munchraths see customers with high blood pressure and blood sugar, anxiety, endocrine, and immune issues. The family speaks wellness fluently, growing up really aware of what they were putting into their bodies.
Micah jokes about never having Fruit Loops or any of the popular cereals as a child in the 1990s. He was pouring a bowl of Kashi, excited about the raisins trickling out between bran flakes, as if they were chocolate.
“(I knew) natural unprocessed sugar versus (refined) sugar when I was in first grade, because my mom would only want me to have the unprocessed sugar stuff,” Micah said. “ Every so often when we had birthday parties and sleepovers and things, my mom would break out the non-weird stuff.”
While Micah grew up with healthy habits, once he got older and gained more independence he admits to becoming addicted to sugar, staring googly-eyed at the soda machines in school, finally able to be like the “normal” kids.
“ I would get headaches ’cause I’d never drank water. And so I would take Tylenol ’cause it was quick and easy,” he said. Overusing drugs like Tylenol can lead to liver damage.
After running down his body for years, Micah went back to his roots and has seen the improvements and serves as a living testimony for the lifestyle and wares Ann’s pedals.
“It took me feeling awful to change something. Unfortunately, that’s how it is for a lot of people that I meet for the first time, He said. “‘I’m already having the problem,’ but the old adage of ‘an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,’ …that’s really where it starts.”
Still standing after 41 years
It’s no secret that small businesses have disappeared as the metro is in the midst of a corporate takeover, finding itself at the top of the commercial real estate market. Area staples have found themselves shutting down after being priced out of their leases and unable to hustle enough capital to adjust to the fast-changing economy. The Munchraths credit rent protection as a way they’ve kept their stores. They also own two of their four buildings.
The way the family works together might be part of their secret, too. The Munchrath brothers each bring something special to the business. Eldest brother Ryan is called the visionary by his two younger brothers, making sure Ann’s not only survives, but evolves. Micah considers himself the bean counter, the one focused on the finances just like his father and his father before him. Landon brings the heart and his grandmother’s caring nature—after a few minutes with him, his deep care for the community is obvious.
Micah and Landon Munchrath in the Red Bird location of Ann’s. Photo by Joi Louviere
“Family business is hard,” Micah said. “It’s a lot of sticktoitiveness and we all love each other, so that’s a good binding force for it all.”
More stores might be in the future for Ann’s, but finding the right partnerships will be important in that decision. Each store has its own personality, but there’s a consistent mission to find solutions that really work for people and each staff member is a part of that.
“If you don’t have the right people that really care about their customer and are only interested in the dollar at the end of it, you will not retain that customer,” Landon said. “We may not always be able to beat online prices, so we have to give them that love and affection that only comes from person to person.”
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